MAPPING RECENT UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR CLAIMS RELATED TO JERUSALEM "AS CAPITAL OF ISRAEL" IN OFFICIAL ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN STATEMENTS.

A few years ago, the United States (US) officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and shortly afterwards the American diplomatic mission was relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem/al-Quds1, although internationally the decision was heavily criticized and met with protests on several levels. The US initiative was adopted as such by other countries supportive of US policy overseas, while Israeli and Palestinian politicians were given a new subject of confrontation at least at the level of speeches and official statements. The purpose of this research is to map universal and particular claims linked to the historic Jerusalem/al-Quds in official Israeli and Palestinian statements at the beginning of the 21st century in selected speeches or official statements of the following Israeli and Palestinian politicians: Naftali Bennet, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal by using discourse analysis in order to identify to which type of techniques and arguments the analysed political personalities resorted to in their speeches, in order to convince and influence their audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]